latenight

teamcoco

If you're familiar with Ray Kurzweil and his popularized NPR article will be a bit of a refresher course but also digs into some slightly deeper concepts like DNA data storage, the class system riff that emerges when synthetic biology takes over and the existing signs that we're already hurdling towards the collective consciousness. Also, I wanted to post that creepy robot photo, so I did.

I was already healthily obsessed with Star City and the Baikonur Cosmodrome but now I'm smitten with another dilapidated Soviet undertaking - Neft Dashlari. You can read the history of it here but I suggest diving into to this quick summary first to get your feet wet. Once you've learned a little about the mostly abandoned Azerbaijan Oil Rig City you will just want to see more.

Ian Samuels

matadorrecs

GerardoSplannessa

Grooveraider

Nintendo

Sonic Robots

VHX is proud to power The Invisible Made Visible; a live stage show presented by This American Life. It's a two-hour extravaganza with performances from the likes of Tig Notaro, David Sedaris, OK Go and a ton more. I'm particularly fond of the piece Ira Glass does featuring unknown photographer Vivian Maier; whose body of work is so incredible it's hard to fathom it was just locked away in storage.

The special is only $5 and, as usual, it streams instantly and has HD download options as well. I realize I'm biased but I seriously think everyone reading this blog will find something enjoyable in the special (the intro credits alone are worth the price). Please go check it out.

First there was SOPA / PIPA. Now there's the ITU. Take some time today to watch this video (narrated by trustworthy Kirby Ferguson) and then get informed, please.

Dang,Chrome is killing it lately. They just recently launched Jam With Chrome and now they've unleashed this Galaxy Explorer. From a tech perspective, I think it's safe to say that no one should lament the loss of the Flash plugin if we're seeing stuff like this inside a browser, natively. From a design / experience angle, this is intensively immersive and gorgeous in so many ways. Be sure to take the tour.

The Oatmeal has plenty of entertaining comics but this latest, Some Thoughts and Musings About Making Things for the Web, is particularly enjoyable. Even if you aren't a "content creator" (or putting things on the Internet at all) it's a great read about motivation, self-doubt, inspiration and the power of destructive feedback.

Damon Krukowski, of Galaxie 500, wrote this insightful article for Pitchfork about the business of streaming music services; Spotify, Pandora, Rdio, etc. They're all great for customers to hear music but they are terrible when it comes to paying the actual artists. Galaxie 500 has been around since 1988, so Krukowski has been exposed to almost 25 years of industry ups and downs. This is harrowing no matter where you're coming from:

Since we own our own recordings, by my calculation it would take songwriting royalties for roughly 312,000 plays on Pandora to earn us the profit of one-- one-- LP sale. (On Spotify, one LP is equivalent to 47,680 plays.)

Granted, people are listening to Galaxie 500 on those services that, otherwise, probably wouldn't be. The exposure element is there but the getting paid angle certainly isn't. It gets particularly interesting when you look at how little profit Pandora and Spotify actually make themselves. Is recorded music becoming an irrelevant purchasable commodity? Regardless, read this article. It'll do everyone some good to know that buying music is still important.

Remember Cabel.name? The personal site of Panic's Cabel Sasser? Yea, probably not because it's been neglected for years. Fortunately he's back with Cabel.me and plugging away quite nicely with the new digs. There's not a ton there yet but if these two posts are any indication of what's to come - it's worth a bookmark already. Be sure to read, and listen to, all of this music from The Incident.

Rob Sheridan has no shortage of great works in his portfolio - particularly all of the great work he's done for Nine Inch Nails over the years. Recently, he's started on some experiments for the How to Destroy Angels collective. I'm sure we'll see more of this once the new LP is released but, for now, just enjoy this great collection of Analog Glitch - perfect execution.

fightforthefutu

exhibitapictures

Composer Aldo Arechar teamed up with Matthew DiVito, aka Mr. DIV, to create the music video for his song "That Will Be The Day" (off his free EP). The video is exactly what you'd expect from a Mr. DIV style video - sort of retro 80's inspired, very sci-fi, lots of diamond shapes and spheres emitting particles. It's all there and it works just as you'd hope - it's a refreshing combo when placed with the classical style music.